Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Review - Hawksmoor

My relationship with steak: a 'kind of like but don't really get it' story

2008: Ari has her first steak, probably in a Harvester, aged 17. The novelty of eating 'white person food' makes it seem really enjoyable, but what really sticks out is the salad bar. (To this day, Ari loves the Harvester salad bar coleslaw)

2008, again: Ari makes her first steak, probably aged 17 again, with a Dijon mustard, cream and mustard sauce. Ari doesn't really know much about resting meat and how you need to cook onions for a long slow time to make anything taste good. But probably the novelty of cooking steak was enough

2010: Ari makes her first steak when drunk, aged 18, at university. It was steak sandwiches. (It was in summer, I was Pimms day drunk, I had no exams.) It was not good. Ari is much better at cooking when drunk now, and sometimes even at not getting drunk before cooking.

2011: Ari has her first fancy steak. It's at Gaucho and some corporate big dogs for some firm she has no intention of working for are paying. This was in the days before the food blog, but if she wrote about it now, she'd comment on how the side dishes were way tastier than the steak itself, and actually, this is the experience that turns her off steak for many years because who wants to chew a slab of meat until it gets boring? (There is actually something way more gross that chewing a steak reminds me of, but I'll leave that to the imagination)

2015, early: Ari ventures into steak territory once more. (I don't know why, maybe an iron deficiency leading to the craving?) She goes to Bouchon Fourchette with her pal who's recently returned from France and has rediscovered a carnivorous streak but mainly for steak. Ari doesn't drink any of the delicious red wine which her friend is really enjoying because she has a mild drinking problem and is trying to abstain. (Abstinence did not last long. Should have had a glass of wine.) Ari is real miserable.

2015, later: Ari tries to go to Hawksmoor with aforementioned carniverous pal. It's meant to be a birthday treat. Instead, Ari has a panic attack in Bank station sparked, in the immediate term, by rush hour and not being able to navigate the exit. Something about walking down different alleys but being unable to escape seems to have a triggering effect (lol). (Obv I don't usually freak out at tube stations.) Ari cries in a Costa next to the station for a while and considers that she really needs to make some changes to her working life.

2015, later still: Ari has the first steak where she realises how people do the whole 'GRR MEAT YES I AM CAVEMAN' thing. It is a Porterhouse cut and it is so moist and soft and just ON POINT.

2016: Ari finally manages to take carnivorous pal for birthday steak, closer to her half birthday. The rump steak is, frankly, underwhelming. The chips are too salty. The mac and cheese is rich (this is a positive) but the spinach is a little waterlogged. The second cheapest wine goes down a charm. The gigantic Ferrero Rocher style pudding tips them both over into sleepy sick territory. Ari is not sold on Hawksmoor, however, she is sold on doing birthday steak as a tradition.